Faith, Hope, Love
by LadyDivine91
Summary: On Christmas Eve, centuries ago, Crowley catches Aziraphale performing numerous acts of breaking-and-entering. The reality? A bit more heart-wrenching. The outcome? Mildly humorous. So he decides to lend a hand. Aziraphale x Crowley


_**Notes:**_

_**Written for Potterheadandsherlocked on Tumblr. I used a real German painter from the approximate time period as inspiration, and points to the possible origins of a certain Christmas legend. XD**_

_A small village in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, 16__th__ Century_

A silent night.

No clouds, but a howling wind.

A full silver moon, throwing shadows on the ground.

Between them, a figure glides, moving about the houses in the square, keeping to the walls and peeking in the windows.

He opens the doors a crack and sneaks inside, a pack on his bag so laden with packages it should slow him down.

But it doesn't.

It doesn't so much as press his feet into the snow so he leaves no prints behind.

Cloaked in red and white, covered in feathers like an upright standing dove, the figure flies from house to house, dipping in and out so quickly he appears as only a blur between blinks.

An ephemeral streak against the dreary landscape.

The figure reaches the final house – the smallest of the lot, leaning with every breeze that blows. His hand reaches for the knob, ready to give it a turn, when a secondary figure creeps up behind him – one without his gift for secrecy.

"Hello, Aziraphale!"

Aziraphale's hand jerks away from the door in surprise. "Do you have to keep doing that every time you see me?" He peeks behind him, glares into poison yellow eyes.

"Yes. Yes, I do. Well, well, well, isn't this a sight." Crowley smirks, arms crossed over his chest, though that's hard to tell in the outfit he's wearing. "Breaking into houses on the holiest night of the year? Tsk tsk, Aziraphale. If you wanted to fall so badly, you could have just come talk to me." _I would have talked you out of it, _he thinks bitterly_._

"That's not what I'm doing!" Aziraphale hisses.

"You could have fooled me. I've been watching you – running in and out of these houses with that pack on your back, full of ill-gotten goods. And …" Crowley leans back, his smirk growing, eyeing up and down the blood-red cloak the angel has on, shielded by his wings curled around his body. "What on _Earth_ are you wearing?"

Aziraphale's right eyebrow shoots up on his forehead. "_You_ should talk. What poor creature did you mutilate to make your get-up?" He snickers as he looks down the demon's body at the shaggy jacket and trousers he's wearing, reminiscent of a muskox, horns included, fixed to the hood, and … Aziraphale's brows draw together. "Are there … _hooves_ on your shoes?"

"There are indeed," Crowley says, overly proud since he knows he's being made fun of. "They're quite useful for walking through all this ice and snow."

Aziraphale rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to the door. "I'll bet. Now, if you don't mind …" He gives the door a shove, ready to resume his work, but it's stuck. He pushes again. It seems to push back, actively resisting. That's when he realizes …

"Crowley! Stop holding the door shut!"

"Nope. Not until you tell me what you're doing."

"Why do you care?"

"I don't. But it's been a long night. I'm bored." The demon sniffs. "_Amuse_ me."

Aziraphale sighs. He doesn't have the time nor the patience for this. But it _has_ been a long night. Aziraphale could retaliate – blow the door off its hinges, knock Crowley down the mountain to boot. But neither is worth the effort in the long run.

Plus, he runs the risk of waking someone up.

"If you must know," he starts haughtily, "I'm not _stealing_ anything. I'm _giving_."

"And what are you giving, angel?" Crowley's voice becomes softer – not just in volume, but in tone. It makes Aziraphale want to mirror it.

"Hope. In the form of food, warm clothes, a few toys for the kids."

"Ah, I see," Crowley says, his soft tone turning sour, and Aziraphale is sorry he let his guard down. "Church attendance low in this town or something?"

Aziraphale sighs again. "Something like that." He's not necessarily offended that Crowley would boil everything down to that. God doesn't happen to be one among his favorites. But for Aziraphale, it goes farther than humans occupying the pews in the rundown shack of a church outside town. It was put there by the same people who force these people to work from sun up to sun down with little to no compensation so why should they attend? And since that's been happening, keeps happening generation after generation, why should they have faith at all that the Almighty is going to fix that for them?

No, Aziraphale doesn't care that only three people here still attend church every Sunday, or that they're the only ones here who pray. He cares that very few people in this town want to go on living, that more and more men risk the dangers of the ice and cold knowing that they won't return.

Betting on it, in some case.

That's what concerns Aziraphale more than anything.

He wants these people to have something to believe in.

He needs them to see that there's a brighter future ahead.

"How many houses have you been to tonight?" Crowley asks.

"I … I don't know. About two hundred? Maybe three? I started at the bottom of the mountain after sunset …"

Crowley tuts. "Why don't you use a miracle? Do all the houses at once? Unless …" He tilts his head, eyes Aziraphale dubiously "… you don't want Heaven to know what you're doing? Do you?"

"This doesn't happen to be one of my official assignments, no, so I thought it best not to bother Heaven."

"But why not? They'd give you a commendation, right? Or don't they think giving food and toys to poor people is worth a miracle?"

"Whether they do or not isn't the point," Aziraphale says, hoisting the sagging pack on his back, hoping Crowley will take the hint and leave him to it. "Sometimes it's nice to do things without someone else looking over your shoulder."

Crowley nods. Then his eye widen. "Oh. Should I … should I leave then? Do you want to be alone?"

Aziraphale stares at the bizarrely shaggy demon, balanced expertly on two hooves, a bit too much on the nose for Aziraphale's taste, and smiles. "No," he says with a muted chuckle. "That's all right. Stay, if you'd like. I'd appreciate the company."

"All right-y then." Crowley beams, all too pleased, and Aziraphale begins to wonder if he made the right decision inviting him along.

Oh, well. Too late now.

Aziraphale turns back to the door. The warm comfort of Crowley's body presses against him as the demon prepares to follow him inside. Aziraphale's smile, which had been absent most of the night, blooms. _What a comical duo they must make to outside eyes,_ he thinks. But what on Earth will he tell people if they get caught? Aziraphale can pass himself off as Saint Nicholas, of course, but Crowley? Will the mortals believe that he's Aziraphale's tall, gangly pet? Some kind of malformed reindeer, perhaps?

They'll cross that bridge when they come to it.

He opens the door slowly, thanking God when the wood doesn't creak, the hinges don't whine. There hasn't been any rain since the snows set in and the doors have been dry as bone. With not a single soul awake, the square is still full of conversation, the houses spreading gossip that can be heard for miles with every wind that blows.

Crowley steps into the house behind him, catching the door when Aziraphale lets it go and closing it, careful not to make a sound. With the door shut, they should be plunged into darkness, but there are so many cracks and holes and uneven corners, pricks of blue moonlight shine through. Inside the house feels more like an ice box than a home, the coals in the stove having long since given up the fight at keeping the place warm.

"This poor family," Aziraphale mutters as he puts down his pack and sets to work. "A mom and two children, one crippled, father gone. How they manage to keep food on the table, I can't understand."

"Sounds like a miracle." Crowley strolls the small living area, examining the nothing this family owns but this two-room hovel, the lot of them huddled together in the next room, fast asleep.

"I wish it was," Aziraphale says, unpacking a box of oranges, another of walnuts, sacks of sugar and flour, small pouches of molasses and peppermint, and a brown burlap wrapped side of bacon. Then he sets out some brightly painted wooden blocks, a toy train, a set of eight water colors, a soft doll with real yarn hair wearing a pretty blue dress. Crowley watches the angel pull more and more items out – a few warm blankets, trousers, shirts, and shoes, marveling at its capacity.

"That's some bag."

"Made it myself."

"Any alcohol in there."

"A bottle or two. Mostly for use as medicine, for _good_ moms and dads."

"Party pooper," Crowley grouses. "Probably the shite stuff anyway, ain't it? Knowing angels ..."

"Hell-hello?"

Aziraphale and Crowley look at one another, both of them wide eyes and rigid spines. The first to his senses, Aziraphale spins around quickly, curling his wings around himself, hiding his face behind long, white feathers that make him appear to have grown a beard.

"Hello, little boy," he says in a huskier version of his voice, one that makes Crowley choke on his tongue. "What's your name?"

"H-hans," the boy stutters, creeping out further into the moonlight. "Hans von Aachen."

"Hello, Hans. And what are you doing awake at this hour?"

"I heard voices. I'm the man of the house, so I came to investigate."

"Are you now?" Aziraphale says fondly, sadly, since this _man of the house_ can't be older than ten.

His lack of nourishment makes him look _eight_.

"A-ha." The thin boy looks up at the angel in awe. "Are you … Saint Nicholas!?"

"Why, yes," Aziraphale lies confidently since he'd intended on going with that explanation all along. "Yes, I am."

Hans gasps. "I was hoping you'd come! My momma, she says that she would pray and pray and pray for you when she was my age, but you never came! But here you are! Oh!" His hands flutter in excitement. "I should go get her! Tell her the good news!"

"Oh!" Aziraphale glances over his shoulder at Crowley, subconsciously asking for help. Crowley is better with children than Aziraphale, after all. Luckily, Aziraphale hadn't encountered one till now. "That wouldn't be …"

"Don't do that," Crowley steps in. "No need to bother her. She needs her rest."

Crowley's voice attracts Hans's attention. When he lays eyes on the demon towering above him in his shaggy suit with hooved feet and a hood of horns on his head, the boy's paper thin skin goes pale.

"Who … who are _you_?" Hans asks in a shaky voice, pointing a fearful finger at Crowley's face.

Crowley looks to Aziraphale for an appropriate response. But since the angel doesn't seem to have one, Crowley decides on one for himself.

It gives him a wicked giggle, too.

"I'm a _demon_!" Crowley growls before Aziraphale can stop him.

Hans's breath catches in his throat. "B-but … why would Father Christmas be traveling with a _demon_?"

"Yes," Aziraphale says, unamused, "why _would_ Father Christmas be traveling with a _demon_?"

"I'm …" Crowley hadn't exactly thought that far ahead, but he recovers quickly "… I'm here to punish all the _bad_ boys and girls! Stuff them into baskets and take them down to Hell for an eternity of punishment!"

Hans gasps again, stumbling backward, literally shaking with fear.

"Good Lord," Aziraphale mutters.

"You're not a bad little boy?" Crowley asks, slinking towards Hans, tilting his head left and right in jarring ways. "Are you?"

"Oh! Oh, n-no! I'm not … I'm not bad! I pr-promise! I _swear_!"

"Leave him be," Aziraphale says, taking a snarling Crowley by the shoulder and pulling him back behind him. "Don't worry, dear Hans. My _traveling companion_ won't hurt you."

Hans nods, but he continues to look unsure. He takes a step towards Saint Nicholas, but the hissing, spitting demon keeps him away.

"Wh-what can I do to make him leave?" Hans asks timidly, but in Aziraphale's eyes, with great courage.

Crowley stands up straight, gazing thoughtfully at the little boy worrying his lower lip with gapped teeth, the two up front too big for his mouth. "Does your mum keep any alcohol in the place?"

Aziraphale puts a hand to Crowley's chest and pushes him towards the door. "Just run along to bed, Hans, and go back to sleep. And for being such a good boy, such a responsible young man, I've brought presents for you and your family. You may open them in the morning."

"Oh thank you, Saint Nicholas!" Hans cries, jumping up and down with a joy that overwhelms his fear. "Thank you so much!"

"And remember!" Crowley calls after him. "Don't tell a soul you saw us! Or I'll be back next year with the basket!"

"You're a horrible demon!" Aziraphale says when the boy has squirreled himself away, back onto a straw-stuffed mattress with his mother and brother, a touch of angelic magic seeing him off to his best ever dreams, and a new thick wool blanket covering the three of them.

"Well, _duh_." Crowley grabs Aziraphale's sack, ties it at the top, and tosses it over his shoulder. "Shall we?"

_Soho, Christmas 2019_

"How do you like your present?" Crowley asks, pouring himself a glass of the rare red vintage Aziraphale acquired for him through less than angelic means.

The acquisition is an integral part of the gift.

Buying Crowley a bottle of his favorite wine isn't any fun. He can do that for himself. Hiring an ex-member of a cartel to steal it from a local mob boss, just to have both gentlemen cornered in a dark alley and arrested seconds before they're about to take one another out however?

That's another story.

One that Crowley reads over and over with every glass he pours, every sip he savors.

"It's _lovely_," Aziraphale says, pushing wrapping paper aside and opening the book Crowley gave him. He flips through the pages, focusing mostly on the plates and not the words just this once. He stops on one page that Crowley had bookmarked with a red satin ribbon. The plate on this page features a lesser known painting by a famous 16th century artist, of Saint Nicholas and the demon Krampus, huddled by the dusty grey hearth of a creaky, hole-infested matchbox of a house, laughing over something the viewer may only speculate about. But unlike similar paintings of this stolen moment, it's the demon that looks fondly on and the saint that seems to have a glint of mischief in his blue eyes. The painting is so finely rendered, so intricately detailed, it could be mistaken for a photograph if not for the handful of visible strokes signifying otherwise.

Aziraphale searches for the signature, his suspicions confirmed when he sees the name etched along the bottom in gold - _Hans von Aachen_.

"Absolutely gorgeous." Aziraphale hovers delicate fingertips above the image – the first painting Hans ever sold. It rescued him, his mother, and his brother from that ragged shack, brought his whole town out of poverty. "But please, tell me one thing?"

"Anything."

Aziraphale lifts the book, displaying the painting for Crowley to see. "How did that whole _Don't tell a soul you saw us or else!_ thing work out for you?"

"I'd say it worked out rather well …" Crowley slides onto the arm of the sofa, bumping his husband's shoulder with his hip "… if it gives people hope. Faith. Something, _anything_, to believe in. Don't you?"

Crowley leans down, lips puckered, fishing for a kiss, and Aziraphale, chuckling at his ridiculous, shaggy demon, lifts his chin to give it. "I guess I can't disagree."


End file.
